Beginners thread for CCEL forums

Welcome!!!! We are glad that you have visited this discussion group, and hope this will be a positive experience for you. Please feel to email me, Ken Verhulst (ktv5@calvin.edu) at any time. Better yet, Feel free to post any questions you have in this discussion forum.

The purpose of this forum it to help and teach beginners ....
(1) what discussion forums are all about
(2) How to participate in online discussion forums
(3) To post questions about forums and hopefully have them answered here
(4) To provide practice using online discussion forums
(5) To provide a transition for users into CCEL's traditional online discussion groups (provide information about new forums and existing forums that are being operated on CCEL.

We may post some 'sample' discussion topics in this practice forum, but the primary purpose of this forum is not to discuss theological and book-related issues as we do in our other forums. Our primary purpose here is to provide a practice forum for folks to get their feet wet in the online discussion forum world.

This is the place to Practice posting, to practice reading posts, and to practice responding to posts.

So, RESPOND TO THIS FIRST THREAD BY INTRODUCING YOURSELF. Write a few sentences telling us about who you are and/or about how you first discovered CCEL.

To Make Your First Post, users need to subscribe and be logged onto CCEL.

What are online Discussion groups?
Online discussion groups are places on the Internet where folks may post comments about various topics. Once the comments are posted, others folks will be able to read those posted comments and questions.

Can anyone read the comments?
That depends on the particular discussion group. Some groups are completely public -- all comments can be read by anyone in the world. Other forums require a membership to post and read comments.

How will I know when someone posts something in a discussion group?
Most discussion groups send email notices providing the entire post or part of a post. So, every time someone posts something, the posts will also be sent out the members of the group?

That could generate a lot of emails! Do I always need to receive an email for every post?
No, it's possible to turn off this feature. Some groups generate a lot of email and posts. Other groups, however, only generate a few emails a day or even a few emails per week.